COMMENTARY

By Mike Farrell

updated 9:17 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2006

The North Carolina football program has been on the cusp of a breakthrough for years. A program that has long lived in the shadow of basketball success, the Tar Heels have fallen just shy of a huge season a few times in the last decade. But with more talent in the state of North Carolina now than in any year in recent memory and a hungry coaching staff, a breakthrough seems closer than ever before.

Flashback to 1997. A coach named Mack Brown left North Carolina with an 11-1 record, a national No. 4 ranking and the foundation to sign the top prospect in the country, a quarterback named Ronald Curry from Hampton High School in Virginia. Curry was also the top basketball prospect in the country and decided to play both sports in Chapel Hill. Things were looking great for the Tar Heels. But while Curry had a very solid career at North Carolina under center, he never lived up to the high expectations heaped upon him. And Brown's replacement, Carl Torbush, was seemingly in over his head. The program has been up and down ever since, and this upcoming season is a big one for head coach John Bunting (hired in 2000) on the field and off it.

Last week, Syracuse, N.Y. quarterback Mike Paulus committed to Bunting and the Tar Heels over offers from programs like Southern Cal, Michigan, Miami and more than 30 others. Paulus is expected to be ranked among the top 4 or 5 quarterbacks in the country and will make a case for No. 2 behind Notre Dame commitment Jimmy Clausen before all is said and done. Suffice to say, Paulus is the biggest commitment to North Carolina in football since Curry and he's already being hailed as the player who will take UNC to the next level.

Though the expectations for Paulus can't be as high as they were for Curry for many different reasons, he'll be joining a team at the crossroads. The Tar Heels went 6-5 in 2004 and 5-6 in 2005 during the regular season. For every breakthrough win against a team like Miami (2004) and Boston College (2005), a tough loss has followed. But when you look closely at the teams that UNC has lost to over the last two years, there's not a stinker in the bunch. Virginia, Louisville, Florida State, Utah, Virginia Tech, Boston College in 2004 and Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, Louisville, Miami, Maryland and Virginia Tech in 2005 — not one of them a bad team and many of them BCS contenders.

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With Paulus in the fold as well as North Carolina wide receiver Dwight Jones, Bunting and his staff already have two players committed who could end up among the top 30 players in the country. Basically, this could be the best recruiting class for the Heels in many years and has the potential to be the best ever. If Bunting can put together a 6- or 7-win season this year, bring in a great 2007 recruiting class and generate some more excitement about a football program that has long lived in the shadow of the hoops team, watch out for the UNC football program.

North Carolina has tremendous academics, a gorgeous campus, top-notch facilities and a fan base that is dying to jump on and support a winner. They have a strong recent history of sending top players to the NFL and they play in a hot conference. Throw in a ton of talent in their backyard and three other programs in state faltering, and this is a program that should scare others when looking at its potential.

UNC has been labeled as a "sleeping giant" for years based on the above criteria coupled with a lack of consistent success. The term is one fans both hate and embrace, detesting the notion that their program should be great but isn't while clinging to hope that it wouldn't take much to turn things around.

The ACC be warned, this "sleeping giant" could awaken soon.

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